Brazil Healthcare: Meeting with Grupo Santa: hospital growth increasingly tied to partnerships

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Brazil Healthcare: Meeting with Grupo Santa: hospital growth increasingly tied to partnerships

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Brazil Healthcare

Meeting with Grupo Santa: hospital growth

increasingly tied to partnerships

Industry Overview

Partnership-led expansion is the preferred growth avenue 09 July 2026

We hosted an event with Grupo Santa’s former operations director, Mr. Michelle Kaline, Equity

and the discussion reinforced that growth opportunities will depend more on access to Brazil

attractive markets than capacity expansion. Strategic provider-payor partnerships are Healthcare

increasingly important to support growth, improve commercial terms and reduce Flavio Yoshida >>

dependence on weaker regional operators. Meanwhile, longer collection cycles, higher Research Analyst

denial rates and greater payor concentration continue to pressure hospital economics, Merrill+55 11Lynch2188 (Brazil)4588

reinforcing the advantage of scaled providers with strong physician networks and local flavio.yoshida@bofa.com

market relevance. We thus reiterate Buy on Rede D’Or. Mirela Oliveira >>

Research Analyst

Merrill Lynch (Brazil)

+55 11 99511 0591Bradsaude partnership is a unique competitive advantage

mirela.oliveira@bofa.com

Partnerships between hospitals and health insurers are no longer limited to commercial

agreements and are increasingly being used as tools to accelerate regional expansion

and strengthen competitive positioning. On Bradsaude/Grupo Santa case, the agreement

seems key for the operator to gain share from regional operators, particularly Unimeds,

while it helps the hospital to diversify payor exposure. It also allows for differentiated

pricing tables, which suggests that the partnerships can create economics that are more